(edit: added a rebuttal to another talking point near the bottom of the page.

Also, please keep your criticism constructive. Otherwise you're just proving my main point at the bottom.)

Attention: I will no longer be updating this page or replying to comments. Only two people attempted to provide any constructive criticism. The rest of the comments were just drama. In hindsight, my response could've been better. And I apologize for my unintended antagonism. My poor choice of words are on me. But dammit, I was trying to keep things impersonal. This has been an unexpected, unintended, and ugly way to prove my point about how political polarization blinds us all. I almost unpublished this page, but I decided that felt like lying.

I don't remember the last time I felt this stressed by an online argument. Not even when I debated in YouTube comments against a dog-pile of idiots who insisted Resident Evil 5 somehow wasn't racist. I dunno why that is. I'm in no state to introspect clearly, but off-hand I'm guessing I expected better of this community than to take out their anger at Trump's election on me over minor slights. We're all trying to figure out what went wrong. That I have different opinions on this subject doesn't make me your enemy.

I get that lots of people will be far worse off than me under Trump's administration. I get that there is a great deal of justified fear and resentment. But I'm not Trump. I'm not one of the hate groups that endorsed him. I didn't vote for him.

Regardless of who you blame for Trump's election, or for the drama in this page's comments, ask yourselves this: if this is how well we handle disagreements among ourselves, how effectively can we hope to organize against Trump in the coming years?

--------

I had believed that my previous page regarding my post-election thoughts would be my last. That I had laid-out and refined everything I had to say. But now I feel the need to elaborate more on political polarization among us liberals. I won't name anybody. And I'll be paraphrasing some of the arguments I've heard, since I've heard more than variant of each.

There are plenty of us who are bitter, which is understandable, but not at all helpful. And there are a number of us, even here on LGF, who aren't earnestly trying to understand what went wrong. They tell themselves that they are, but all they're doing is trying to rationalize their preconceptions and demonize "the other," while accusing them of doing just that. Which brings me to my first point:

1 - "Wait! What are you talking about? Trump has been saying racist, xenophobia things. And white supremacists endorsed him. How dare you equate me with that!"

Racism isn't the only form of prejudice. It's easy to assume everyone who voted for Trump is a racist. But that's just wrong. The majority of registered voters in this country are unaffiliated. That means they're not registered as a republican, nor as a democrat. If you assume everybody who didn't vote your way has a borg-like hive-mind, you might just be projecting.

"But, but..." Hold on a sec. Let's stay on format.

2 - Okay, you were saying? "But how can they just ignore what a horrible monster Trump is? Aren't they clearly condoning his racism and sexism?"

I dunno, how can we just ignore civilians killed by drone strikes? How can we ignore the legally questionable expansion of NSA surveillance? Does that mean we condone these things? Whichever way you answer that last question, that still puts us inside a glass house with an armful of stones. We all ignore the faults of "our guy" for the sake of "the greater good." We're all guilty of this kind of bias. The majority of Trump voters are no different in this regard. How can we ignore that economic recovery efforts only benefit cities while rural communities which lost their manufacturing economic backbones have been left to rot?

3 - "There's no bringing back manufacturing jobs. They should just accept it, shut up and suffer in silence, and vote for our candidates anyway for the greater goo... Oh, don't give me that look."

Its far easier to preach sacrifice for the greater good when it's someone else paying the price. When it's someone else whose suffering instead of you. Also, this is false. Read my previous page, linked up at top.

4 - "They selfishly put their own needs over those of discriminated minorities."

What did I say a minute ago about drone strikes? Quit throwing stones already.

We could've prevented this from happening. We could've peered outside our bubble, took note of people's complaints, and tried to do something to help them. Instead, we blocked it out, and focused on only the good things that happened on Obama's watch. We assumed conservatives were making up the stagnation of rural America to tar Obama and rile-up their base.

Our fanatical partisanship forced them to choose between their own needs and that of distant strangers. It wasn't either/or until we helped make it so. Besides, as I've said twice before, we have no right to preach altruism. Whatever happens to minorities under Trump's watch, they're just drone strike victims as far as rural America is concerned. Tragic to hear in the abstract, but we've got our own real problems.

I might edit this page for additions as I either hear new arguments, or get reminded of arguments that I forgot.

Edit 1 - "The majority of Trump supporters are middle-class or at least well above the poverty line."

This talking-point is based on a pre-election poll. And we've just seen that there were alot of people the pollsters didn't account for. This is why the scientific method requires peer review and duplicate studies.

Most who voted for Trump live in rural communities, and the middle-class is almost non-existent there. Even taking into account that the majority of Americans didn't show-up on election day, how is it mathematically possible for the majority of Trump voters to be so well off?

Like what? Infrastructure, small businesses, and green energy? That's all I heard, and I've been in the same liberal bubble as you. I even subjected myself (understatement) to watching the debates. If Clinton had other ideas, she didn't communicate them for beans. It might've gotten lost in all the attention paid to Trump's racism, sexism, and ridiculously bad business practices. (I mean, srsly? Who loses nearly a billion dollars in one year running casinos?)

If HRC had better ideas for rural America than an echo of President Obama's economic plan, and I missed them, how well do you think they've been conveyed to Trump country?

If you want, blame the Clinton campaign for bad messaging. Or blame the media. Or even blame ourselves collectively. But who's to blame hardly matters, compared to the results. Clinton sounded like four more years of Obama, and rural communities hit hard with high rates of unemployment, addiction, and suicide, decided on a changing of the guard.

Edit 3 - "Back in the primaries, Trump called Mexicans rapists, and shot up to the top of the tracking polls."

Party primaries have a far lower turnout than the general election. They tend to draw the more passionate, fanatical, or just plain whack. It's a very skewed sample from which to draw wider conclusions. I never said there are no racists among Trump voters. I said that we've tarred them all with the same brush, and that is a mistake.

My point is that if you make arguments similar to the ones above, then you're probably more interested in defending your narrative than genuinely seeking to understand. The solution is to engage in open-minded conversations with people in Trump country with the goal of understanding their POV instead of shaming them.

Remember, the people who supported racial segregation by law didn't all die off. They were convinced. That takes engagements, not mockery and demonizing. All the later has ever accomplished was pushing each of us to seek solace in our respective echo-chambers. Besides, you might learn something too.

Apologies in advance if I sound like I'm repeating myself from previous pages. I'm just trying to organize and refine my thoughts. Let's do this in a quasi-list form.

1 - We need a change in Democratic party leadership. Our strategy of circling the wagons has cost us dearly. Time for a change.

"But it was just one election." Wrong! We got our asses handed to us in 2010 and 2014 too. And while Obama kept the oval office in 2012, we didn't recover our losses from 2 years before. The excuse "it was just the mid-terms, what did you expect" obviously won't work this time.

"But we mustn't waste our war coffers on in-fighting. We have alot of seats at stake in 2018." In case you weren't paying attention, Trump just proved that campaign spending isn't everything. And much more so than Obama did in 2012. No more using money as an excuse for complacency. We either evolve or die. It's time for fewer tv ads, less fundraising, more social media presence, and otherwise more direct interaction with the public & press.

2 - We need to abandon cable news, and start financially supporting more trustworthy news sources, such as online print. Or at least those that still engages in investigative journalism. (lgf deserves support too, but keep in mind that this is a blog, not a source for news)

Twenty-four hour news channels have mostly dropped investigative journalism in favor of sensationalism and vapid, often cringe-inducing, filler. This is real problem, not just because of misinformation, though I don't mean to downplay how problematic that is. It's also perpetrating and exacerbating political polarization. Their business model revolves around that now. And it's poison, I don't care how many of their opinions you agree with. Political polarization is good at whipping up party bases, but at the expense of blinding us to tangible problems. It also blinds us to the opinions of swing voters, the undecided, and those who just sit things out in disgust.

Opinion polls about issues, especially the ones that allow more nuanced answers than "agree, strongly agree, disagree, ect", consistently show that America is becoming more progressive, and that disagreements between most of us are much smaller than cable news has led us to believe. Said disagreements still exist, but they're not insurmountable. We just need to engage "the other side" more, and not just to educate them. We also need to educate ourselves about our own blind spots. Such as this elephant in the room that we ignored during the election...

3 - The economic divide between cities and small towns. Cities have recovered from the recession. But rural communities have not. Obama's economic platform, which Clinton echoed to no avail, revolved around service jobs such as infrastructure and mom-&-pop businesses. This works for cities, but not for lower population densities, even if local businesses survive the opening of a new Wal-Mart. (which they usually don't)

Rural voters chose Trump and republicans, despite the man being a charlatan, and despite the party being largely to blame for outsourcing. Why? Because they're the only ones promising the manufacturing jobs they need. Yes, I know those promises are empty. The libertarian-esque "solutions" conservatives are offering are just snake oil for the working class. The mess in Kansas isn't the only time that's proven that economic growth isn't stimulated by cutting corporate taxes, regulations, and wages. But when you're desperate, and your options are either snake oil or nothing, you will give the snake oil a chance.

But the fact that conservatives are offering false hope gives liberals a potential path to victory, if we can offer something better. Something real. Something that actually works.

Like what? Lemme brainstorm for a minute:

How about government loans to start-up manufacturing businesses? Alot of green energy manufacturing companies got started during the Obama administration that way. Why not do more of this, focusing on locating them in small towns? And not solely for green energy. Hell, not just for start-up manufacturing companies either. Offer larger industries subsidies and tax-breaks that cover the expenses of building new rural operations? Or for buying, re-purposing, renovating, and reopening shuttered small town factories? (no, this isn't the same as cutting taxes for the wealthy. This is just covering initial expenses to get the ball rolling)

Or how about using the "more jobs" sales pitch to increase NASA's budget? Voters won't care that the aerospace industry is more privatized now, so as long as it means more good paying jobs for them.

Or how about harvesting more domestic lumber, as opposed to importing the majority of the wood we currently use? So long as we act responsibly, e.g. replanting and selectively harvesting, trees are a renewable resource. Plus, it's less dirty and dangerous work than fossil fuel extraction.

While we're at it, why not end the exploitation of cheap farm labor? Close the farm loopholes in labor laws, make them pay living wages, and subsidize the farms for the difference in costs in order to keep our food cheap. We're already in the habit of subsidizing farmers for other reasons, so this isn't a hard sell.

Again, I'm just spit-balling here.The point is that it doesn't take a helluvalotta imagination to find ways to, um "manufacture" more good-paying manufacturing jobs. We just need to shift the focus of our economic growth policies away from cities, since they're well enough for now, and towards rural communities.

And if you're concerned about backlash against increased spending, don't be. Just propose taxing the wealthy more. Most voters are readily support that so long as they get the jobs they need.

TL:DR - the democratic party needs a change in leadership and modernization of basic campaign methods, especially de-emphasizing fundraising since campaign spending clearly matters far less than it used to. We need to move away from 24/7 cable news and deescalate political polarization on a personal and grassroots level, since each side shaming one another objectively causes harm and only benefits a cynical few. And we need to quickly shift our economic policy focus to giving rural America the one thing it needs most: good-paying manufacturing jobs.

This, I believe, is our path to victory in the coming years. We stick to our current ways at our own peril.

I was born and raised in Trump country. My family are Trump people. If I hadn't moved away and gotten this ridiculous job, I'd be voting for him. I know I would.

See, political types talk about "red states" and "blue states" (where red = Republican/conservative and blue = Democrat/progressive), but forget about states. If you want to understand the Trump phenomenon, dig up the much more detailed county map. Here's how the nation voted county by county in the 2012 election -- again, red is Republican:

Holy c***slaps, that makes it look like Obama's blue party is some kind of fringe political faction that struggles to get 20 percent of the vote. The blue parts, however, are more densely populated -- they're the cities.

...

Blue islands in an ocean of red. The cities are less than 4 percent of the land mass, but 62 percent of the population and easily 99 percent of the popular culture. Our movies, shows, songs, and news all radiate out from those blue islands.

...

Every TV show is about LA or New York, maybe with some Chicago or Baltimore thrown in. When they did make a show about us, we were jokes -- either wide-eyed, naive fluffballs (Parks And Recreation, and before that, Newhart) or filthy murderous mutants (True Detective, and before that, Deliverance). You could feel the arrogance from hundreds of miles away.

Is Trump going to screw them over? Of course. Was it a mistake to elect him? Absolutely. But he was telling desperate people what they wanted to hear. And I mean economically desperate people.

Hey, remember when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans? Kind of weird that a big hurricane hundreds of miles across managed to snipe one specific city and avoid everything else. To watch the news (or the multiple movies and TV shows about it), you'd barely hear about how the storm utterly steamrolled rural Mississippi, killing 238 people and doing an astounding $125 billion in damage.

...

They're getting the s*** kicked out of them. I know, I was there. Step outside of the city, and the suicide rate among young people f***ing doubles. The recession pounded rural communities, but all the recovery went to the cities. The rate of new businesses opening in rural areas has utterly collapsed.

I'm overdoing the quotations as it is. So please go read the whole article.

The point is that while Clinton was talking about infrastructure and small businesses, Trump was talking about industrial manufacturing jobs. Guess which one was more likely to benefit small towns more? Again, I know Trump was making empty promises, but tell that to people who are suffering double the average suicide rate. Clinton's economic plan didn't seem include them.

I stand by most of what I said in my previous page. But I must rescind my previous implied assertion (implied because looking back, I hadn't actually said it, but still feel like I did) (edit: I did say it towards the end, because I need more sleep) that racism was the driving factor of Trump's victory. That's not the case. I'm not saying bigotry wasn't a factor, but not in the form we assumed. Trump's dog-whistles largely included inner-city stereotypes, playing on the "city folks are strange" mindset. Whereas Clinton dismissed Trump supporters as consisting of at least half deplorables, reinforcing the "pompous elitist" image.

Yeah, Fox Noise is largely in part to blame for this poisonous image of city folk out in the country. They and religious leaders helped drive social wedge issues as a substitute for solving the real problems. But we too are guilty of prejudice. ...against country folk. Hear me out. The studies showing Trump supporters being primarily the relatively well-off, as opposed to impoverished, must be wrong. Why? Because the middle-class is scant in small towns and rural areas. It's not mathematically possible for the relatively well-to-do to be the majority of Trump supporters outside of the cities. They are mostly desperate people sick of us not listening to them. In other words, it was a "Brexit"-like protest vote, not a referendum for white supremacists. (not that I expect the celebratory KKK to understand)

As for the degree to which racism tainted their views and votes, it's not an issue of animus so much as it is a matter of white privilege. If you think about it, it's not really that different from the white liberals who are telling people of color, immigrants, and muslims "everything's going to be okay." 'But, but, but white supremacists endorsed Trump. It's not the same thing.' As if I could forget. The desperate country folk weren't voting for white supremacist organizations. They were voting for the one guy telling them what they wanted to hear. The openly racist groups were just an abstract distraction as far they're concerned. Not an issue at all, for them.

Adam Conover was right on the money in his Adam Ruins Everything Election Special. Political polarization has indeed made us stupid. If we had reached out to discuss what problems they face and how to help, this disastrous election could've been avoided. Let us not repeat that mistake.

I still endorse starting a "new wave" of liberals taking over the Democratic party Teabagger-style. The party leadership and direction needs to be changed. But we also must stop perpetuating the culture war between city vs country. Because only cynical, power-hungry a-holes in both parties ever win that war. We need to discuss returning manufacturing jobs to small towns. And when we talk about infrastructure, small towns and rural areas should be discussed first and foremost.

It's tempting to focus on cities since that's where the majority of people live, but we won't undercut the republican base that way. Besides, most city governments have adequate resources to solve most of their own problems. Aside from disasters, systemic racism and large corporation shenanigans, helping the cities doesn't need to be front and center.

And that's enough rambling for now.

Edit 2: another Cracked article, from the same writer no less. He just touched on some of the same things I just did. Some. His focus was elsewhere. http://www.cracked.com/blog/dont-panic/ Why didn't I read this first? Wow, I really need to sleep.

Well, we've underestimated how bigoted and xenophobic this country still is. And we're going to pay, some much more than others. I don't consider myself well-off, but I recognize that I'm in a privileged enough position that I'll likely be around with voting-rights intact four years from now. Not everyone is so lucky.

So what will we do about it? I've summed up my thoughts on that in my reply to this page by mr.fusion:

...I predict there will be lots of terrible things for which Trump and the neo-Republicans will deserve blame. There will be no need to blame them for hangnails & molehills. They're going to screw us for real. I'm not of the "death before dishonor" school-of-thought, but we need to keep at least a modicum of dignity. When the time comes, (and it'll come more than once) we'll need to be credible enough to say "I told you so." We'll need to remember how to be rational and coherent when it's time to convince everyone else that we can pick up the pieces.

As for a change in democrat leadership, and being relentless in holding the media's feet to the fire, I say abso-bloody-lutely. Pressure state branches of the democratic party to make their party nomination process more transparent and, ahem, democratic. Create a new wave of democrats: an empowered grassroots upheaval who are relentless with messaging like the Tea Parties were in 2010 and Fox Noise has been for over the last decade & half. In that respect, we absolutely do need to fight fire with fire. I've believed as such back in 2012 & 2014. I hope liberals will be more receptive of this idea now.

Edit: oh, and if anyone is worried that the resources don't exist to create a "counter-tea-party", don't be. Considering how the stock market has reacted to Trump's victory, I'm quite sure there will be plenty of deep pockets who have little confidence in the democratic party as is, and therefore can be convinced to back such an insurgency.

There will be time to hash-out our long-term strategy. But for now, we also need to help those most likely to be endangered by our republican-elect government. I have no good advice on that. (again, privileged. Sorry, I know my limits) I can only suggest to not procrastinate discussing this topic.

But the first thing we need to do is look for signs of hope. I know, I know. I cringed a bit just typing that. But we have to remind ourselves that all is not lost, that there is a path to victory. We'll need to remember this because we're going to lose many battles in the near future. And there will be more casualties added to the current toll. (just ask #BlackLivesMatter) We'll need to keep sight of that hokey ray-of-light at the end of this dark tunnel.

For starters, Trump is a con man who told his marks what they wanted to hear. Now he's going to screw them over for his own benefit, for the same reason cats kill birds even when they're not hungry. Its just as much a compulsion for him as sexual assault. Years ago, Trump promised Scotland his golf course w/ resort would create lots of new jobs. Just ask those who went along with that plan what they think of Trump now. That's how the Drudge Distort/Fox Noise audiences will feel about him later, possibly within the next two to four years. He'll have a much harder time maintaining his support from them.

Speaking of unlikely allies, lots of republicans turned against Trump when he was nominated. Granted, it was mainly those who are no longer in office, or worked for such. But before we write them off, remember that several republicans sued democrats over attack ads associating them with Trump. It remains to been seen how many of them are still disgusted by his toxicity now that it's clearly worked in his favor. But we may have more potential Republican allies in office than we realize. And I suspect their numbers will increase as Trump screws things up. We'll have watch close for awhile to see if there will be enough such "turncoats." But it is an avenue worth pursuing.

As I've said before, there are alot of people with money who fear & suspect as we do that Trump's administration will be disastrous. Don't underestimate their influence now that the s**t's inevitably going to hit the fan.

And finally, cold comfort as it may seem, we now have a definitive go-to counterpoint to shut-up those who insist racism in America is bygone. This talking point was used to justify gutting the enforcement powers of the Civil Rights Act. It was also used to justify striking down school transfer programs that previously done away with school segregation in northern states which exploited a deliberate loophole in said Civil Rights Act. Don't underestimate the importance of debunking this nonsense in a thorough and concise manner. Even if the benefits of doing so aren't immediate. (because they likely won't be)

But while these headlines sound like the rock bottom of humanity, we're all capable of justifying awfulness for the sake of our "teams." And for a lot of powerful predators, latching yourself onto a political ideal or pop culture staple is a quick way to build an army of deniers. It's the biggest defense a powerful and guilty person has: that they are somehow too entrenched, too load-bearing, too beloved to fail. They're betting that our morality in the face of irrefutable evidence is weaker than our fandom and idealism. Because no one wants to think that something they love was put there by a monster ... even though there's no reason degenerate monsters can't make cool things. Otherwise, we wouldn't have Michael Bay's entire filmography.

Thanks to Trump's rhetoric and fanatical supporters, people are afraid of violence during and after the election. But things can get alot worse than that. Remember that Trump weaponized these fanatics, but he didn't create them. The roots of the problem are much deeper, and aren't limited to the alt-right.

6 Reasons Why A New Civil War Is Possible And Terrifying

Over the last few weeks a growing number of people have started wondering, "Is it possible the United States is heading for a new civil war?" Granted, most of those people are writers for sites like Russia Today or the Huffington Post, and thus slightly less credible than a handful of Bazooka Joe gum wrapper comics. But Donald Trump has made a few tinpot dictator-ish statements recently.

And we did just see an anti-government militia get off scot-free for occupying a federal building and pooping just, everywhere. And we are seeing ---- like this in our pre-election headlines:

Every time I wanted to dismiss those headlines I thought about my visit to Ukraine last year, to cover their ongoing civil war. The most common sentence I heard was, "It's like a bad dream." Up to the minute the shooting started, almost no one thought civil war was a serious possibility.

So instead of waking up one day and screaming, "Holy ----, I can't believe I didn't take this possibility seriously," I decided to take the possibility seriously. I talked to David Kilcullen, former Chief Strategist in the State Department's Office of the Coordinator of Counterterrorism. He helped plan the successful "surge" in Iraq, and he's seen a lot of civil wars in his time. He didn't consider a new U.S. civil war likely ... but he was also pretty damn far from ruling it out: "I think what we're seeing now is, what I would describe as a proto-insurgency situation ... the ingredients are out there, if somebody knew what they were doing, [they could] pull together an effective movement."

Read the whole thing. It's a terrifying look at how things can get out of hand, and sooner than we want to believe it can. We're not at the edge, but we're in denial of how close we are to it. We prefer to think of ourselves as an advanced society, but we're really more of a powder keg. Scary, huh?

This article caught me a bit off-guard. Nothing that should've surprised me in hindsight, but... Uh, let's just say I wasn't looking for something so depressing. Then again, when one clicks on any article with an attention grabbing title, one will eventually stumble into vicarious hard realities.

This is basically another of Cracked's regular photomanip contests. I couldn't help but notice that a number of manips in this one had to do with gender. Hmm... Meh, it probably doesn't mean anything.

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http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/317961_Cracked-_20_Double_Standards_S#rssMon, 07 Sep 2015 16:36:55 PDTImagesCracked: The 6 Most Ridiculous F***-Ups In The History Of ScienceEiMitchDirect link to article... [littlegreenfootballs.com]

There's no doubt that science has made all of our lives much better, as evidenced by the fact that we wrote this article entirely from the men's room of our neighborhood Chipotle. (We'll be living here for the rest of the week, if you need us.)

But that's science, dude -- scientists, on the other hand, are just normal people who get up every morning, drive to work, and occasionally f*** up in excruciatingly highfalutin' ways. What are we talking about?

The #1 spot on this list reminded me of another article I linked previously: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/317718_Cracked-_6_Reasons_You_Cant_Tr But do read the rest of it. The stories range from funny to scary to both.

Wikipedia started as a noble idea: a free, encyclopedic reference site for everything with a neutral, evenhanded tone. The problem with Wikipedia is the same problem as the rest of the internet, the human element. And it's not just the random contributors who are to blame. Editors, sometimes with admin powers, have poisoned the well.

Is there anything out there that sexist trolls won't ruin?

Wikipedia, for those not familiar, is the largest online encyclopedia. Think Cracked but with slightly fewer fart jokes. Some people want that. Go figure. Despite being such an influential site, Wikipedia has fewer than 10 percent female editors. That leads to some strange problems. For example: The entries on porn stars and Pokemon are both more extensively detailed than the entries on prominent women. This page on American novelists is divided into "Female American Novelists" (for the women-folk) and "American Novelists" (for the men). They once removed all the female movie directors from their list of horror directors.

Basically, it seems like Wikipedia has some weird problems with regard to gender -- so what's up? Well, I was an editor from shortly after it was founded until just a couple of years ago. I am also a trans woman, and I can tell you exactly what's up.

The scientific method -- make an observation, form a hypothesis, test your prediction, obtain data -- is the cornerstone of science, right up there with dramatically removing your glasses and exclaiming, "My god ..." But modern science has added a step you didn't learn about in third grade: publish your results. Publication is an important way for scientists to share research and advance their careers. Here's how it's destroying science.

Have you ever wondered why it took The Lancet about a decade to admit that Doctor Andrew Wakefield was full of crap? That's hardly an abominably. It turns out that "peer review" is far, far easier to legally claim than calling yourself a MD. Scientific publications are more concerned about profit and prestige than ethics or integrity.

I was catching-up with Cracked articles. I found an obvious click-bait article, "4 Sexual Preferences That Only Recently Became Taboo": http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-sexual-preferences-that-only-recently-became-taboo/ Knowing that, I read it anyway. From there, I read a depressing article, "5 Ways College Screws Over Poor Kids": http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-college-screws-over-poor-kids/

But the article I want to draw your attention to an article that, despite getting into some heavy subjects, left me feeling much less pessimistic about humanity in spite of having just read the other two: http://www.cracked.com/article_22710_5-sworn-enemies-who-formed-inspiring-friendships.html

For most people, the story of how they met their best friend is rather boring -- around 90 percent of friendships in the world are probably determined by school bus seat placement. Frankly, "how I met my worst enemy" stories are way better ... and as we've demonstrated before, it's more interesting still when the two happen to be the same person. Proving that there's literally no aggression humans aren't capable of forgiving, here are five heartwarming friendships that were forged by overcoming things like torture, racism, and murder:

Victims of kidnapping, torture, mutilation, and attempted murder who forgive their assailants. Family members who forgive the murderers of their loved ones. And even a Klansman who befriends a civil rights activist. Just add "eventually" to each of those three sentences, and you've got the gist of the article. But don't take my word for it. Read the whole thing for yourself.

Oh, and if you happen read the other two articles I've linked above, I refuse to take responsibility for the consequences.

This is a story of sexual assault told primarily from the perpetrator's perspective, using the pseudonyms "Tim" and "Vicky" for him and his victim respectively. But this isn't the story of a predator on the prowl. No, this is a story about the consequences of rape culture.

The point we want to get across here is that we talk about "rapists" like they're a different species, predators lurking among us who must be spotted in advance. And while those people exist (and fully take advantage of all the legal gray areas described above), the reality is that lots of people who commit sexual assault are only a predator for one night, or one hour, and are shocked to find out they did anything wrong. Despite what Tim said above, there is no monster lurking inside them.

These ones are just regular people who grew up believing certain things about sex and are reinforced by a system that seems to silently give in to them.

I had to choose between the "Crime" and "Culture" categories. But this clearly fits both.

One problem with history is that we tend to view everyone through a modern lens. Thus, the "good guys" surely held all of our modern progressive views. (The Spartans in 300 were all about freedom and democracy, right?)

The reality, of course, is that every real hero had an ugly side, one which was either overshadowed by their heroism or was simply consistent with the general ugliness of the era. Still, you're not getting a true sense of history if you ignore the fact that ...

Do you think highly of George Washington, Winston Churchill, Alexander Graham Bell, Ulysses S. Grant, W.E.B. Du Bois, or the Tibet's Lamas? Too bad, because they're all on this list.

ISIS -- the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria -- is one of the least funny organizations on the planet. From child trafficking to attempted genocide, everything they touch turns into a big steaming pile of tragedy. Things seem to be going pretty well for them, too. The West's new boogeymen captured the city of Ramadi, Iraq, last month, and they appear to be drawing in new recruits slightly faster than American airstrikes can kill them.

But, the truly scary thing is that they seem to have just popped into existence overnight. How many of you had never even heard the term "ISIS" before last year? How is such a spontaneous mass of organized terror even possible? We were wondering that, too, so we sat down with a few people who were on the ground in Iraq during ISIS's real-life supervillain origin story. We learned that, if we're not the father of ISIS, the United States is at least some sort of uncle.

While reading this, the only spoiler-free thought I had was "so, have the ends successfully justified the means? Apparently not." At least the pseudonyms bring a touch of levity.

As much as the words "freedom of speech" and "first amendment" get thrown around on the Internet, the concept itself never gets talked about. In fact, I can't remember the last time anyone brought up free speech because they actually wanted to talk about free speech -- seems like people bring it up only when they want to scream some s***ty thing as loud as they can and don't want anyone to get mad. I'm going to talk mainly about the Confederate Flag debate here, but I'm increasingly worried that this applies to every discussion involving free speech for as long as I've been alive.

No matter how much we want to sympathize with the less privileged, our brains tend to take shortcuts, many of which have been sculpted by millions of years of evolution. The powers that be have long ago learned how to nudge our thoughts into the shortcuts that lead to the conclusions they want us to reach.

This might literally be the oldest trick in the book. I'm thinking powerful people have been doing this to protesters and activists since the days when getting gored by a mammoth was a leading cause of death. It plays out like this:

A) A certain group has a complaint -- they're being discriminated against, had their benefits cut, whatever -- but they are not the majority.

B) Because the majority is not affected, they are largely ignorant and uninterested in what is going on with the complainers...

C) To get the majority's attention, the group with the complaint will gather in large numbers to chant and block traffic, etc. This forces the media to cover the demonstration ... and cover the issue in the process...

D) To counter this, all you need to do is simply wait for a member of the activist group -- any member -- to commit a crime. Then the media will focus on the crime, because riots and broken glass make for even more exciting photos and videos than the demonstrations. The majority -- who fears crime and instability above all else -- will then hopefully associate the movement with violence from then on.

And that's just the first tactic on the list. Click the link on top, read the rest. If you get a chill up your spine as you do so, that's probably because all the tricks in this article are creepily familiar.

Ultimately, I occupy a weird little spot in between so many of the more clearly defined designations for gender, sexuality, etc. The funny thing is, I've grown to like it here. In an odd way, being hard to categorize has made me feel a little bit more special. It forces people to have to examine me a little closer if they want to ever understand me. Plus it makes close-minded people's heads explode like f***ing Scanners, and that never gets old.

I can't help but suspect that this article is addressing self-proclaimed (or those who might as well be self-proclaimed) anti-sjws. How come? Oh, I dunno...

Now, we circle back to the idea I introduced at the start -- you, hypothetical white male reader, didn't own slaves or systematically shut black people out of the economy for 150 years after. But, you are part of a greater whole, and, thus, you reaped some of the benefits. In theory, we should all have learned this in history class -- not just that slavery happened, but that we were all born at a certain level because we were boosted there by a complicated set of systems developed to reserve the best jobs, schools, neighborhoods, and social systems for people who look like us.

If they try to teach this in the classroom, critics will scream that they're making white kids "feel guilty for being white." But, there's that confusion again -- telling those kids they're guilty (that is, "to blame") for being white would be wrong. Telling those kids that, as white people, they are responsible for fixing inequality is just a statement of fact. The entire concept of civilization is that things are supposed to always be getting better -- each link in the chain is hopefully a little smarter, richer, and healthier than the one before. That's why the average American today dies at about 79, but the average ancient Roman died in their late 40s (even excluding those who died in childhood). But, improving means fixing things that are broken. That is, things that other people broke.

In the time it took us to research and write this article, a man named Freddie Gray went from living anonymously in Baltimore, to lying comatose with spinal cord injuries after a ride in the back of a police van, to having his funeral spark protests and civil unrest in his city. And by the time we publish this, the cycle may have started over again with someone else.

In the meantime, the biggest question we're asking ourselves -- besides "I wonder what some random jackass I went to high school with is saying about these issues on Facebook?" -- is when will the freaking cops stop killing people? Not anytime soon, it looks like, because ...

It's mostly stuff regulars of lgf pages already know. But it's nice to see it compiled. And by "nice" I mean "making me ashamed and afraid of living in the US of A." Its not just any single thing causing this. This is a multifaceted problem that will require a multifaceted solution (some parts political, some parts cultural) that social conservatives will fight against tooth & nail.

Do you feel like getting mad at mega-corporations right now? With no specific point to make other than temping yourself to shout "f***ing liars!" at your monitor/device at the top of your lungs before sheepishly noticing everyone's bewildered stares around you?

Well then, this link is for you: http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_1464_27-blatant-lies-advertisers-were-caught-using-in-ads/

I wasn't sure whether to categorize this as business or crime. Either works.

If there happens to be anyone reading LGF who opposes nuclear disarmament for any reason, you probably need to know that our doomsday arsenal is less secure than a revolving door in a prison. I'm just saying that we're lucky to die of climate change instead of Dr. Strangelove levels of radiation released by sheer incompetence.